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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22859614">like you've nothing left to prove</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/otfuckingp/pseuds/otfuckingp'>otfuckingp</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>4 people in it, Breaking Things, Dancing, F/M, Fluff, If You Squint - Freeform, Wine, also the smashing crystal scene is so pretty, but i am IN LOVE with Darlington, english people are sexy?, hi this fandom has like, i dont make the rules i just write them, i kind of wrote him as english a little bit, idiots in love when they dont even like each other yet, just a bit of UST, look darlington is SO SMITTEN, this bitch was barely even in the book and he stole my heart, unclear why</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 19:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,283</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22859614</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/otfuckingp/pseuds/otfuckingp</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a long moment, he said, “Would it help to break something else?” </p><p>She was breathing hard, but the barest curl of a smile graced her lips. “Maybe.”<br/>It took nothing, cost him nothing, to open cupboard after cupboard of crystal and glassware and ornate china, every incarnation of excess made real on this Earth, and offer it up to her. Lethe was drowning in money, funding year or no funding year, and no amount of broken dishware would cost them the childhood they could’ve given Galaxy Stern.<br/>~~~<br/>rewrite of the Darlington-and-Alex-break-expensive-things scene</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Darlington/Alex Stern</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>91</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>like you've nothing left to prove</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You know that scene in the Netflix Ted Bundy movie where they break a bunch of wine glasses and it’s yellow toned and they kiss and dance right before everything goes to hell? This is that but Darlington isn’t a serial killer. Probably.</p><p>Official soundtrack (all by Hozier): movement, dinner and diatribes, from eden, work song.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>After a long moment, he said, “Would it help to break something else?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>She was breathing hard, but the barest curl of a smile graced her lips. “Maybe.”</p><p>It took nothing, cost him nothing, to open cupboard after cupboard of crystal and glassware and ornate china, every incarnation of excess made real on this Earth, and offer it up to her. Lethe was drowning in money, funding year or no funding year, and no amount of broken dishware would cost them the childhood they could’ve given Galaxy Stern. There was no salvation in this, but there was no <em>loss </em>either. Everything Lethe dealt in, every secret offer and stolen good, none of it was to be worth anything if they couldn’t offer the simple pleasure of refuge from that which they swore to regulate.</p><p>So he ignored every highbrow comment that could’ve been made, every well-bred instinct in his upbringing that cringed at the thought of such <em>waste</em>, and asked:</p><p>“Where would you like to start?”</p><p>Something in him crowed with victory when she accepted the filled glass he offered.</p><p>There was something dangerous in it, though, in allowing himself this camaraderie with the girl who looked as likely to throw the glass at him as anything else in the room. The dark fury still hadn’t left her eyes, the set of her shoulders, the cut-glass tilt of her collarbones. Relaxed, yes. Gone? Not a chance.</p><p>But tonight was not the night for instincts, not when sheer luck had saved them both from certain misfortune, or at least a good fucking from the forces of death and damnation. Not when he was still recovering from the disastrously alluring pull of Hiram’s Bullet, and certainly not when she’d given him a verbal thrashing within an inch of his life, one he’d sorely deserved.</p><p>Eyes never leaving his and faster than he could reconsider, she flung the glass right past his shoulder. It crashed into a full shelf, sending the contents cascading to the ground with a musical tinkling.</p><p>Two drops of wine spilt onto his shoulder, staining the crisp white linen. The rest dripped out of the cabinet onto the floor, the patter shockingly loud in the silent room.</p><p>Either she had good aim, or she’d been looking to hit him and just barely missed.</p><p>Not allowing himself the chance to debate which was more likely, he grinned, “Quite.” drained his glass, and sent it sailing into the wall behind her.</p><p>Alex didn’t flinch either.</p><p>She took it as tacit permission, which was what he thought he’d been giving her by handing her a full glass of red wine and thousands in crystal. Leave it to her to wait for his cue, even in destruction. Even in the destruction she’d been so clearly threatening not a minute before. Alex strode to the wine-sodden cabinet, taking down a decanter so marred with cuts it was nearly opaque.</p><p>Priceless, probably.</p><p>She dropped it with a saccharine smile, never breaking eye contact.</p><p>Probably waiting for what she saw as his inevitable regret, a hasty backtracking and reevaluation, something to keep her from wreaking havoc on the neatly-ordered tenets of this life.</p><p>She had yet to learn that when Darlington made a decision, he damn well stuck to it.</p><p>Her next victim was a gravy boat patterned in ivy leaves. She didn’t even pause to watch its demise, simply throwing it over one shoulder while reaching for an ashtray. He had to laugh. <em>So eager. </em></p><p>He knew better than to attempt getting her attention without some other form of bribery. So he simply crossed to the cabinet on the other end of the room, took down two more flutes, and filled those to the brim.</p><p>Tapping her on the shoulder, he held the proffered glass as a shield between himself and the platter she’d been intending to shatter where he stood. “You know, I’d intended for you to <em>drink </em>that.” He held the other glass in his right hand, and as if to demonstrate, took a slow sip.</p><p>A shadow of a frown passed over her face, so rapidly he almost missed it. But it was gone just as quickly in the next moment, replaced by a measured smile, and he tucked it to the back of his mind for later examination. A smile was better than the unrestrained terror on her face when they’d left Aurelian, despite whatever mask she’d thrown on to hide it.</p><p>“Well, next time be clearer about it.” She took the glass, eyes never leaving his, and finished it in one long swallow. A lingering trace of the Syrah stained her lips cherry-red. He wanted to look, but his gaze was drawn instead by the movement of her arm as she flung the glass into the wall nearest them. He had no choice but to close his eyes against the spray of glass shards he could feel bouncing back, peppering harmlessly against his legs and torso.</p><p>He reopened his eyes to see her unmoved but for the smile gracing her mouth. She hadn’t even flinched.</p><p>And like that, it began. Her smile came easier, brighter. Their intermittent laughter was broken only by the sounds of things breaking, of wine being consumed and spilled. His shirt was quickly stained beyond repair, sleeves and collar and breastbone the same imposing claret.</p><p>“How is it I’m a mess and you’ve not got a drop on you?” He called across the room from where he was elbow deep in a cabinet.</p><p>Alex hummed, conspiratorial, not looking up from the stack of wineglasses she was shattering in a circle around her, “Maybe I’m just lucky.”</p><p>“Or maybe,” he straightened, “you’ve a habit of throwing things my way instead of just at the wall?”</p><p>She shot him a wink. “Who can say?”</p><p>That started something of a war, wine being flung from glasses half-full, half-empty, entirely-full. It was a lucky thing Lethe’s casks were as full as its coffers.</p><p>So distracted were they with the competition of it all, they almost forgot to throw the glasses themselves.</p><p>Almost.</p><p>~~~</p><p>At some point, perhaps halfway through the second shelf and third bottle, she walked over to poke at the old stereo, swearing at it all the while. He left her to her ministrations but a moment before she demanded, “How the fuck do you work this damn thing?”</p><p>By now he was well and truly on his way to drunk, the room bending every so slightly and pleasantly at the edges. Given her smaller size and that she’d had nearly twice what he had, he had to assume the same for her. “I haven’t the faintest clue.” He walked—swayed—over nonetheless, shoulder brushing hers to peer at the aged silver box.</p><p>“What do you even want to play?” Starting it was one thing, controlling it entirely another.</p><p>She echoed his thoughts exactly, “Does it even matter?”</p><p>“Best to let the house decide.” For all his luck, he’d probably end up with the worst sorts of things and no hope of changing it back. “Would hardly suit to end up with country music, though.”<br/>
<br/>
She laughed, and he fought to pretend it wasn’t the best thing he’d heard all night.<br/>
<br/>
She didn’t let him get far into his own head, though, bumping him out of the way ever so slightly. He went as she desired, warm and pliant. “Have you tried just—” and she brought her hand, rather violently he thought, against the side of the thing. Once, twice, a resounding plastic <em>thunk</em> echoed through the room.</p><p>“You’ll just break it that way, Stern.”</p><p>Her lips quirked. “I thought breaking things was the whole point of tonight?”</p><p>“Not things you intend to use.”</p><p>She shot him a look. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d have been able to interpret it even while sober, meaning heavy in her ink-dark eyes, but as it was he found himself rather lost.</p><p>Quite without warning, music poured easily from the speakers, blooming in the wine stains and glittering crystal lacing the floor, a slow tune taking refuge in the sepia-toned corners of the room.</p><p>He had the unadulterated pleasure of watching Alex’s smile blossom. It came as if surprised out of her, warmer than any he’d yet seen.</p><p>He had never heard this song, but he couldn’t have picked a better one given a thousand years to try.</p><p>Though he was quite confident that she would deny it to her dying day, the only description for what she did next was <em>dance. </em></p><p>It wasn’t the grinding, swaying act that he’d witnessed at a thousand parties he’d rather not remember, but even so, every movement had a purpose and intention, a fit within the music like puzzle pieces clicked into place. The echoing <em>crash</em> of a shattering goblet coincided perfectly with a swell in the music, her feet landing exactly with the beats and sighs of the crooning singer.</p><p>There was elegance and fury alike in every line of her, lighting crackling in the sway of hair about her shoulders, lace—or perhaps just pinot noir—dripping from the extended tips of her fingers.</p><p>She turned back to him, hand outstretched to beckon him closer, joy radiating from every wine-soaked inch of her.</p><p>And presented with such a sight as Alex Stern moved to dance, what could a man such as him do but follow in her wake?</p><p> </p><p>She was something to behold, in the way that tornadoes and tempests grab the eye and refuse to relinquish their hold. He could hardly hope to match her.</p><p>Her tinkling laughter was all the encouragement he needed, though, and soon they moved as one in a hectic frenzy, feet hitting the marble floors in a facsimile of rhythm, shoulders jostling as they reached for the same glassware, fingers brushing as their hands closed around the stem of the same glass.</p><p>They both paused, moment stretching like taffy as the music continued around them.</p><p>Three hours ago, he’d have yanked the glass from her hand.</p><p>An hour ago, he’d have expected her to take it from him, and he’d have let her have it.</p><p>Right now, he reached for the wine bottle where it rested on the counter behind her. Bringing it back into her field of view, he filled the glass. She followed the movement with her eyes, lips slightly parted, clearly confused. He tipped the bottle, mimicking a toast.</p><p>And promptly dumped the wine over her head.</p><p>Tomorrow, when he had to wash Grand Cru out of his hair, he would decide that it was completely worth it.</p><p>~~~</p><p>When there was no more crystal to smash, when the wine had long since run dry, when his coordination would tolerate little more than propping himself on a stool and looking in her direction, he took a moment to survey the chaos they’d wrought upon the room.</p><p>Leaning heavily on the island, he pointed a finger at where she was stretched out across the settee. “There’s a metaphor in this, Stern.” He took in the trashed room, ruined crockery, splattered wine, their own ruined and disheveled appearances. Her shirt hung crookedly from one shoulder, dappled dark and darker from the Margaux they’d opened an hour ago, a striking contrast to her milk-pale skin, speckled as it was with drying burgundy. There was glass glittering in her hair, which spilled like ink across the yellowed fabric of couch.</p><p>Her smile was crooked, easy. “How so?” She ran a hand up from her elbow to her shoulder and back, as if cold. He was presented with the sudden, illogical urge to offer her a coat. Indoors. Wonderful.</p><p>“Something, something, destruction and beauty, making and unmaking…I’m not sure yet.”</p><p>None of that was coherent in the slightest, but neither were they.</p><p>That was something to sort out in the morning, several Aspirin and many hours from now. He merely said “I’ll figure it out when I’m sober.”</p><p>He neglected to mention that he’d been thinking in metaphors all night, with varying degrees of clarity and crudeness. That he’d never felt quite like this, the unadulterated freedom and warmth curled under his ruined shirt equal parts foreign and welcome.</p><p>She was quiet for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. “You talk some shit, you know that?”</p><p>He couldn’t help but laugh. She couldn’t even hear what was happening in his head.</p><p>…Or could she? Alex was nothing if not a series of surprises. She could do things he’d only ever heard of as the wildest of imaginations and irregularities. She saw Greys on the regular, no bite of Hiram’s Bullet ever passing her lips. She <em>touched Greys¸</em> or they touched her, something he’d only heard of happening <em>once</em> since Lethe started keeping records on those sorts of things. She threw wine at him not five minutes after he’d yelled at her and then laughed about it. She coaxed life and music out of a sullen old house that answered to no one. If anyone he knew was going to read fucking minds, it was her.</p><p>“….Darlington!” Her voice broke through the haze he’d descended into, and he realized he’d been staring at her for some minutes. “…hm? Yes? What?” Any effort to right himself only resulted in listing dangerously to one side, the floor threatening to greet him at rather an alarming pace.</p><p>She didn’t reply, so he chose something altogether different to say. “You want to know something, Alex?” He hoped she was altogether drunker than he was, or the way he’d said her name might just earn him another glass lobbed at his head.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I always hated Waterford.”</p><p>Her peals of laughter were the best thing he’d heard all night.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I’m in love with the idea of Darlington being in love with Alex before he even knows it and certainly before he decides to like her<br/>Boy is smitten okay<br/>also I will have you know i googled SO MUCH rich people stuff to write this </p><p>Drop some kudos/comments if you enjoyed, offer other scenes I should write if you have them</p></blockquote></div></div>
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